Vida Blue, Oakland A’s ace in the ’70s, was recruited by Notre Dame to play football, and youngest Cy Young, MVP winner.
Blue was ambidextrous. He not only was a switch hitter in baseball but it was said on his high school football practice field he could take turns sprinting left and throwing rockets with his left arm, then sprinting right and throwing rockets with his right arm.
Blue’s power simply overwhelmed most opposing batters in high school. But his accuracy was so wild that once, in a seven-inning game, he struck out 21 batters — every out a strikeout — but DeSoto lost the game because Blue walked 10.Two years later, at age 19, he made his Major League debut with the A’s.
In 39 starts for the resurging A’s in 1971, Blue went 24-8 with an American League-best 1.82 ERA, 24 complete games and eight shutouts. He also struck out 301 batters and walked only 88 in a whopping 312 innings pitched. Blue not only became just the fourth pitcher ever to win both a league’s Cy Young and MVP awards, he became the youngest to win either in major-league history, at age 21/22. And won the AL Cy Young in the same year Ferguson Jenkins of Chatham, Ont.
That 1971 season would stand as Blue’s best. He suddenly became the talk of baseball — appearing on the cover not only of. That year he became the first pitcher to start a league’s regular-season opener, start for that league in the all-star game, and start that league’s playoff opener. After the season, Blue demanded that eccentric, volatile A’s owner Charlie Finley raise his salary from $14,000 to $92,500. Blue held out for much of the 1972 season, finally compromising at $63,000.
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Vida Blue, led Oakland A's to three World Series titles, dies at 73Pitcher Vida Blue, who helped lead the brash Oakland Athletics to three straight World Series titles before his career was derailed by drug problems, has died.
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Vida Blue, led Oakland to 3 World Series titles, dies at 73Vida Blue, a hard-throwing left-hander who became one of baseball's biggest draws in the early 1970s and helped lead the brash Oakland Athletics to three straight World Series titles, has died. He was 73.
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Vida Blue, Led Oakland To 3 World Series Titles, Dies At 73Vida Blue, a hard-throwing left-hander who became one of baseball’s biggest draws in the early 1970s and helped lead the brash Oakland Athletics to three straight World Series titles, has died. He was 73. The A’s said Blue died Saturday but didn’t give a cause of death. “I remember watching a 19-year-old phenom dominate baseball,…
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Vida Blue, led Oakland to 3 World Series titles, dies at 73Vida Blue, a hard-throwing left-hander who became one of baseball's biggest draws in the early 1970s and helped lead the brash Oakland Athletics to three straight World Series titles before his career was derailed by drug problems, has died. He was 73.
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Vida Blue, led Oakland A's to three World Series titles, dies at 73Pitcher Vida Blue, who helped lead the brash Oakland Athletics to three straight World Series titles before his career was derailed by drug problems, has died.
Read more »
Vida Blue, pitcher who led the Athletics to three World Series titles, dies at 73Vida Blue was one of baseball’s biggest draws in the early 1970s, winning the 1971 American League Cy Young Award and Most Valuable Player after going 24-8 with a 1.82 ERA and 301 strikeouts
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